The sounds of their pursuit broke into Bek’s thoughts, but he forced himself to stay calm. “So now they’re hunting us, following our tracks or our scent, using these fresh caulls?”
Truls Rohk laughed. “You couldn’t be more wrong. They don’t care about us! It’s the witch they’re looking for! She’s done something to convince the Morgawr she wants the magic for herself—or at least convinced him she’s too dangerous to trust anymore. He’s come to take possession of the magic and do away with her. He doesn’t realize there isn’t any magic to take possession of and the witch has already done away with herself! It’s a good joke on him. He’s wasting his time and he doesn’t even realize it.”
The cowled head turned in the direction of Grianne. “Look at her. She’s as dead as if she’d quit breathing. The Druid thinks she has a purpose in all this, but I think his dying blinded him. He wanted something useful to come of all this, something that would give meaning to the lives wasted and the chances lost. But wishing doesn’t make it so. When he destroyed Antrax, he destroyed what he had come to find. The Old World books are lost. There isn’t anything else. Nothing!”
“Maybe we just don’t see it,” Bek ventured quietly. He heard snarls and growls from the approaching caull. “Look, we have to get out of here.”
“Yes, boy, we do.” The hard eyes peered out from the shadows, reflective stone amid a sea of shifting mist and bits of matter. “But we don’t need to take her.” He gestured at Grianne. “Leave her for the Morgawr. Let them do with her what they choose. They won’t bother with us if we do. She’s what they want.”
“No,” Bek said at once.
“If we take her, they will keep after us, all the way inland to wherever we run, to wherever we hide. If she could find us earlier, they can find us now. Sooner or later. She’s a weight around our necks and not one we need carry.”
“We promised Walker we would protect her!”
“We promised it so that the Druid could die at peace.” Truls Rohk spit. “But it was a fool’s promise and given without any cause beyond that. We don’t need her. We don’t want her. She serves no purpose now and never will. What she is has destroyed her. She isn’t coming back, newly born, your sister returned, you’re not going to be a happy family reunited. Thinking otherwise is foolish.”
Bek shook his head. “I’m not leaving her. You do what you want.”
For just an instant, Bek thought that Truls Rohk was going to do just that. The shape-shifter went as still as the shadows on a windless night, all dark presence and hidden danger. Bek could feel the tension in him, a sort of singing sound that was more vibration than noise, a cord become taut on a bow drawn back.
“You persist in being troublesome,” Truls Rohk whispered. “Have you no capacity for rational behavior?”
Bek almost laughed at the words, spoken with such seriousness but rife with irony. He shook his head slowly. “She is my sister, Truls. She doesn’t have anyone else to help her.”
“She’s going to disappoint you. This isn’t going to turn out like you think.”
Bek nodded. “I don’t suppose it will. It hasn’t so far.” He kept his eyes locked on the shape-shifter as the sounds of approach intensified. “Can we go now?”
Truls Rohk stared at him a moment longer, as if trying to decide. Then he came forward, all blackness even in the early morning light, picked up Grianne like a rag doll, and tucked her under his arm.
“Try to keep up with me, boy,” he said. “Carrying one of you is load enough.”
He sprang atop the nearest remnant of wall and began to navigate its length like a tightrope walker in a street fair, crouched low and moving swiftly. The feel of his sister’s hand in his a lingering warmth, Bek watched him for a moment, then hurried after.
Ahren Elessedil listened with growing concern as the snarls of the caull leading the Morgawr’s party deeper into the ruins grew more anxious. Clearly, it had come across something, tracks or scent that it recognized and wanted to pursue. Its handlers had not released it, however. Nor was the Morgawr giving it much attention,—his focus was on Ryer Ord Star as they walked next to each other, engaged once again in close conversation. What was it she was telling him? The boy was encouraged by her whispered words, but suspicious of her actions. She was asking him to trust her, but doing nothing to warrant it. He had thought she might at least try leading their captors in the wrong direction,—instead she was taking them the way she had come, directly toward the entrance that led underground to where they had left Walker.